


Put Your Hand On My Shoulder

by Abi (justabi)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst, M/M, Substitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-03
Updated: 2008-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:49:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justabi/pseuds/Abi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't make you a pussy to cry in Hell and you don't have to make excuses to anybody for that, not even to yourself, but that isn't the point.  The point is Castiel is one fucked up piece of work, that's the damn point right there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put Your Hand On My Shoulder

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you roxymissrose for just in general being totally awesome, and lillyjk for your lightning fast beta services. You rock.

You see Hell behind your eyelids. Sam doesn't know, and you don't want him to. You want Sammy to keep believing you don't remember a second of what he couldn't save you from. It's not the only thing you've ever hidden from him, but it's the thing that keeps you apart, no matter how close your bodies might be. Sam blames himself for things that aren't his fault, and no matter what he thinks, this isn't on him. It's not on Mom either, for making the deal that put Sam in that yellow-eyed fuck's grasp, isn't on Dad for raising you both the way he did, without another person in the whole world to care about. Hell was your choice, and more than that, you probably deserved it. Not like you ever thought you were going to heaven anyway, right? Nothing to stop you from a thousand sins, lust and pride and wrath, nothing to keep the violence of your life out of your blood, and if it hadn't been demons, you don't kid yourself that it wouldn't have been someone. You know yourself better than that, even if Sam doesn't.

You know Sam's doing something that's twisting his soul, and you know he doesn't want you to. Something broke in that boy while you were dead and you don't know what to do fix it, don't have any idea how to start, don't have it in you to give your all and fail. You were never enough for Sam, not like he was for you, no matter how wrapped up in you he was. Dying didn't change that. It's not that you don't know Sammy loves you, of course you know, but Sam was meant for bigger things than living out of a motel, better things. He's always needed other people, even if it's just to bring him coffee. You'd have been happy with just you and him and the open road. You _were_ happy, always so happy to have him with you, and Sam was too, for a while.

Something fucked him up though, and maybe it was just you being dead—he was certainly fucked up beyond what you could stand just from whatever the Trickster did to him—but this is different. If you'd have just kept your damn mouth shut and let him think you died on a hunt, he would have been hard up for a while, but he'd have gotten over it. Sammy'd always believed in God and angels and all that crap; he'd have been happy thinking you were in heaven, playing happy family with Dad and a mother you can barely remember and never really knew. It was knowing you were in Hell that made Sam desperate, but you don't think that's what made him drunk on power.

That was Ruby, you think, in your less charitable moments. You and she had a deal, but she didn't keep up her part of the bargain and now she's fucking Sam–physically, spiritually, any way she fucking can. Fucking witches. Doesn't matter what kind of humanity she kept down in the pit, you've seen what humans get up to without any prompting from anyone. Humanity is over-fucking-rated. In fact, humanity is scary as fucking shit.

Angels though, they're something else. _Castiel_. He's scarier than you'd ever imagined an honest to god emissary from, well, _God_ would be, but that's not what freaks you out. You've had a long and pretty damn fundamental relationship with fear since you were four years old. If it were only a matter of that, Castiel would be just another bad-ass supernatural motherfucker disappointed you aren't shaking in your boots. It's not. Castiel might be an angel, _is_, no matter how much that fucks with your world view, but he's hardly the harp-strumming, cloud-floating, pin-dancing, watching-over-you-while-you-sleep type Touched By an Angel led you to believe. Well, except for the watching you while you sleep bit, which is a damn sight creepier than it sounds.

Castiel knows what Hell looks like behind your eyes, knew it before you did, back when it was just flashes of light and sound, back before you started reliving it every night. You don't know how he knows, but he does, and he's there every time you open them after. And if you know one thing for sure, he ain't there because he wants to wipe away your tears. Or maybe not. If you had to hazard a guess, you'd think he _likes it_ when you cry. Not that you fucking cry, you aren't a fucking pussy, but it was fucking hot in the pit and your eyes still sting, it still _burns_ when you close them. And you know what, damn it, it doesn't make you a pussy to cry in Hell and you don't have to make excuses to anybody for that, not even to yourself, but that isn't the point.

The point is Castiel is one fucked up piece of work, that's the damn point right there.

Angels can't cry, he says. He told you the first time you decked him one for licking your tears off his fingers. It fucking hurt. It's not just that he doesn't get it about not shredding the meat suit of the poor schmuck whose body he appropriated, Castiel doesn't understand human frailty _at all_. Not that you're frail, not for a human, but you are still human; no matter how the fuck _special_ Castiel thinks you are, it still hurts when someone sticks his fingers in your fucking eye. Now he just brushes the tips of his fingers against your face, then presses them against his lips. Freak.

Seriously, the dude is like an alien for all he _looks_ human–not that you've ever seen him without the accountant's body in between. He still tries to talk to you without it sometimes, gets frustrated and indignant that your ears bleed, like you want to have your brains come dribbling out and be deaf for the rest of your life. Come to think of it, if Sam were an angel he'd probably be just like that. _Bitch._ Sammy would be an awesome angel, only half as creepy and twice as annoying.

Sam's not ever going to be an angel, though. You don't want to think about that. Ever.

You don't want to think about anything.

Normally you'd find a girl right about now, because there ain't nothing like fucking to make you forget your fucking troubles, but you don't feel like it. You haven't felt like it since before you died. Nothing sweet and soft and pliant touches you anymore, not even if they have whips and chains and strap-ons and that would scare you if you could get scared by anything but going back to Hell anymore. You're not sure that you're willing to believe in a god who'd take _all this_ away from the women of the world, but apparently he doesn't give a flying fuck if you believe in him, if Castiel is anything to go by, sort of the way you don't care if an ant believes in you right before you step on it. Harsh, but true.

The only time you _feel_ anything, anything that isn't like pain, is when Castiel touches you. You thought it would be Sam that made you feel again, but he doesn't touch you. Maybe he can't. Maybe he just doesn't want to. The last time you touched anyone human was that first month back, before you knew better. Might have been the first day back when you last touched Sam, when he wrapped himself around you and you never wanted to let go. But you did and he did and it just never came up again. Besides which, it would break something you'd never get back if you touched Sam and it didn't _touch_ you.

Castiel may be a freak with one outfit and no personality, and possessive in a way that should be creepy as all fuck—and it is, it really fucking is, no matter the sick, twisting heat it churns in your gut—but you can't help feeling smug about it all the same. All that _God commanded me_ crap is bullshit. He wants to touch your brand, the place his grasp burned into your flesh—and places where you're pretty fucking sure God didn't command him to keep _grasping_ you—wants it like your mom wanted a normal life, like your dad wanted revenge, like Sam wanted you before you _died_. And you let him, because it's the only time you feel alive, and in the end, the rest ... well, the rest is none of anyone else's fucking business.


End file.
